Sloan School of Managementhttp://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/17772018-03-14T21:56:36Z2018-03-14T21:56:36ZMatching faces to expectations : the impact of political and business domain differences in gendered expectations on preferred appearance for leadersYang, Hee Jin (Hee Jin Heather)http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/1140562018-03-13T06:15:48Z2017-01-01T00:00:00ZMatching faces to expectations : the impact of political and business domain differences in gendered expectations on preferred appearance for leaders
Yang, Hee Jin (Hee Jin Heather)
Prior research has demonstrated that feminine appearance is penalized in business contexts. However, a separate body of research, predominantly centered on electoral outcomes, has put forth conflicting results demonstrating that feminine appearance can be beneficial. In a series of experimental studies, I aim to resolve the conflict in the literature by proposing an expectation-matching theory. I propose that, although both domains of politics and business are associated with masculine characteristics, contexts within the political domain are associated with fewer masculine characteristics than contexts within the business domain and, as a result, perceivers expect and prefer less masculine facial appearances for political leaders than for business leaders. The findings of the studies add to the face perception literature and the gender bias literature that examines the impact of circumstances that make gender and professional roles discrepant in their impact on consequential outcomes, such as hiring and electoral outcomes.
Thesis: S.M. in Management Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 2017.; Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.; Includes bibliographical references (pages 56-60).
2017-01-01T00:00:00ZThe more the merrier? : understanding the effect of group size on collective intelligenceHashmi, Nadahttp://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/1139572018-03-03T07:18:14Z2017-01-01T00:00:00ZThe more the merrier? : understanding the effect of group size on collective intelligence
Hashmi, Nada
This dissertation explores how group size affects collective intelligence. It is composed of three quantitative studies. The first study explores how time pressure in small groups (size 4) and large groups (size 20) affected collective intelligence. The results showed that the large groups significantly and consistently outperformed the small groups in different time pressure conditions. This led to the second study which explored whether the collaboration tool used in the first study might have provided unexpected benefits for large groups that counteracted any process loss in the large groups. While the results from the second study confirmed that the collaboration tool did indeed significantly improve the collective intelligence score of groups, one surprising result was that this effect occurred, not only in large groups (size 20), but also in small ones (size 4). The final study then set out to explore this surprising result in further detail by including a variety of group sizes (sizes 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35 and 40) in both the collaboration conditions. It was hypothesized that by including more group sizes, the study would determine whether a curvilinear (inverted-U) relationship existed. The results not only confirmed the curvilinear (inverted-U) relationship but also suggested an optimal group size of about 30 for groups with the collaboration tool and 25 for groups without the collaboration tool.
Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 2017.; Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.; Includes bibliographical references (pages 87-104).
2017-01-01T00:00:00ZOperating in the shadows : the productive deviance needed to make robotic surgery workBeane, Matthew I. (Matthew Ian)http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/1139562018-03-03T07:18:08Z2017-01-01T00:00:00ZOperating in the shadows : the productive deviance needed to make robotic surgery work
Beane, Matthew I. (Matthew Ian)
Though a 2.5-year mixed-method study comparing robotic surgical practice to traditional surgical practice, I explore how crucial outcomes require productive deviance: norm- and policy-challenging practices that are tolerated because they produce superior outcomes in the work processes governed by those norms and policies. My empirical focus was fortunate - I show that productive deviance is likely especially important in the first ten to twenty years of significant technical reconfiguration of surgical work. I open my dissertation through a comparative empirical introduction to my context and a review of the literature on deviance in organizations. The second chapter of my thesis is a history of how the surgical profession has relied on productive deviance for integrating new technologies since the early 1800s, ending with a deeper treatment on robotic surgery. My third chapter focuses on how only a very few surgical residents managed to gain confidence and competence with robotic surgical methods given significant barriers to such learning. In contrast to what the standing literature on learning would predict and in tension with the norms for learning within the surgical profession, these residents engaged in a suite of practices I call "shadow learning" - involving premature specialization, abstract rehearsal and undersupervised struggle. I explore how each of these practices both allow progress and create unintended negative consequences for the profession. My fourth chapter explores a case in which surgical teams routinely used new, well-maintained robotic surgical devices and occasionally faced the stressful and practically difficult task of using an under-maintained, unreliable surgical robot. In this chapter, I show quantitatively that patients did just as well on the degraded robot, and I outline the often invisible, undervalued "compensatory work" that professionals did to ensure such outcomes. The main contribution here is to explicitly treat affect as integral to coordinated work that is grounded in suboptimal material arrangements. Through these studies, I solidify and enrich our conception of productive deviance and show how it is critical for a range of professional and organizational outcomes.
Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 2017.; Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.; Includes bibliographical references (pages 137-149).
2017-01-01T00:00:00ZSupply chain transparency and social responsibility : investigating consumer and firm perspectivesValdés, León (León Matias Valdés Saavedra)http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/1139542018-03-03T07:19:14Z2017-01-01T00:00:00ZSupply chain transparency and social responsibility : investigating consumer and firm perspectives
Valdés, León (León Matias Valdés Saavedra)
Consumers increasingly expect companies to ensure that their products are made in a socially responsible manner. However, most companies do not have good visibility into their supply chains. According to a recent study, 81% of the 1,700 companies surveyed lacked full visibility into the social responsibility practices of their suppliers. Using incentivized laboratory experiments and a game-theoretic model, in this thesis we study how improved transparency about social responsibility practices in the supply chain can positively impact companies' interactions with both consumers and suppliers. In the first part of this thesis, we design an incentivized laboratory experiment to study two key questions: (i) How does visibility impact consumers' valuations of social responsibility practices in a supply chain? (ii) What roles do indirect reciprocity and prosociality play in affecting consumers' valuations under different levels of visibility? Our results demonstrate that consumers are willing to pay more for greater visibility. Also, high prosocial consumers do not exhibit indirect reciprocity. Conversely, indirect reciprocity increases low prosocial consumers' valuations under high visibility. In the second part, we study how a manufacturer can improve a supplier's social responsibility practices under incomplete visibility. We consider a game-theoretic model with information asymmetry about the supplier's practices and focus on the manufacturer's investment in the supplier's capabilities. We also consider the potential disclosure of social responsibility information to consumers by the manufacturer or a third party. We find that the manufacturer should invest a high (low) amount of resources in the supplier's capabilities if the information it observes suggests poor (good) practices. Greater visibility helps the manufacturer be more efficient with this investment. The disclosure of social responsibility information by the manufacturer leads to better supplier's practices. Finally, we conduct an incentivized laboratory experiment to investigate (i) how does visibility affect consumers' trust in companies' communications? (ii) How does visibility impact the effect that trust has on consumers' willingness-to-pay for products? Our results show that the effect of visibility on trust is highly dependent on consumers' prosociality. In particular, only low prosocial consumers trust companies more when they demonstrate greater visibility - and this translates into a greater willingness-to-pay.
Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 2017.; Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.; Includes bibliographical references (pages 197-205).
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